Howard Campion looks back at Princess Road, in Malton

ORIGINALLY called ‘Ropery Road’ then ‘Cemetery Road’ it finally became known as Princess Road after Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, visited the Cottage Hospital in 1925.

Princess Mary (Image: Supplied)

The event was filmed and is available from Yorkshire Film Archive.

Quite recently the old building was demolished and residential flats (Princess Court) were built in its place.

Princess Road today (Image: Google)

For all the road’s length it is parallel to the line of the town wall.

A little further to the south west this defensive structure crossed Wheelgate between Finkle Street and the beginning of Newbiggin.

There is the likelihood that a ‘gate house’ or some much edifice existed at the crossing point.

Read more from Howard Campion:

• At look back at The Mount in Malton
• From courtship to cross country – a look back at a popular Malton path
• A look back at Malton’s defensive town wall

It is interesting that one of the buildings here had a curious stepped and low level ground floor, probably significant with regard to its origin.

There had always been a shortage of late night buses from out of Malton.  One remembers the building being available on an evening for bicycle storage during a ‘night out’ (threepence up to 10.30pm and sixpence up to midnight) supervised by an elderly gentleman listening to the wireless at the back of the dimly lit room.

A map of the area from 1850 (Image: Malton and Norton Heritage Centre)

Newbiggin may even owe its name to being an individual settlement outside of the early town limits defined by the town wall - it even has its own back lane which was Wentworth Street’s original title before residential development there in the early 1900s.

Nowadays, Princess Road gives access to the cemetery and Wentworth Street carpark.

This does flood occasionally which is not surprising given that it was once been the site of ‘Smithson’s Pond’.